Riptide

“I’m right behind you, Adam. Go, quickly!”

He didn’t realize Becca wasn’t with him until he was out the front door and two agents had lifted Thomas from his shoulder. “Jesus, a chest wound. Get the paramedics over here!”

“The fire department is on the way,” Gaylan Woodhouse said, ru

“Where the hell is Krimakov?” Savich shouted.

“Becca,” Adam said, looking around wildly. “Becca?”

“Jesus,” Hatch said, ru

“Becca,” Adam said, frantic now, and he knew he was barely hanging on. “Where’s Becca?” He saw the flames billowing out of the upstairs windows. The beautiful ivy that nearly covered that side of the house was on fire.

“Thomas shot Krimakov,” Adam said to Gaylan Woodhouse and Hawley, who were bending over him. “He’s got to still be inside. Maybe he’s unconscious or dead. Jesus, where’s Becca? Please, you’ve got to find her.”

The walkie-talkie boomed out, “No one has tried to come out of any windows or the back of the house.”

“Get Krimakov,” Gaylan shouted. “Dammit. GET HIM!”

Becca, oh God, where was Becca? He wanted to go back into that house to find her. He had to, had to, but he just couldn’t move. The fire wasn’t only in the house now, it was inside him and it was eating its way out. The pain in his back held him utterly locked in place. He couldn’t move.

“Oh my God,” an agent shouted. “Up there!”

“It’s Becca,” Gaylan Woodhouse whispered. “Oh, no.”

Adam did move, suddenly, with a spurt of strength he didn’t know he had. He roared to his feet. He followed everyone’s eyes to the roof of the house and felt his heart drop to his feet. No, please Jesus, no. But it was Becca, on the roof of the burning house.

“Becca!”

There were at least a dozen people standing in the front yard, looking upward. Then everyone was silent, still.

There, highlighted in flames, stood Becca, in her white nightgown, her bare feet spread, holding the Coonan between her hands.

“Becca,” Adam shouted, “shoot the fucker!”

But she didn’t. She just stood there, pointing the Coonan at Mikhail Krimakov. He was holding his arm, blood dripping through his fingers. Blood also dripped down his cheek from a head wound. He was leaning over, as it was nearly beyond him to straighten. What had happened to his gun? Oh God, Adam couldn’t believe what he was seeing, would have given five years of his life if he could have changed it, if he could even have moved, at least tried to save her. But there was nothing he could do. He saw an agent raise a rifle. “No,” he said, “don’t try it. He’s off at an angle. Don’t take the chance of hitting her. Where are the firemen?”

Flames had caught the roof on fire now, licking out of the balcony off Thomas’s bedroom. It wouldn’t be long now until the flames ate the roof and sent it crashing into the house, until it was too hot on the roof for her to stand there, barefoot.

He heard her then, speaking loudly, very clearly.

“It’s over,” Becca said to the young man not eight feet from her. “Finally, it’s over. You lost, Mikhail, but the cost was too high. You killed eight people, just because they were there.”

“Oh no, I killed many more than that,” he said, raising his head, panting with the pain. “They didn’t count, any of them. I used them, then of what possible use were they to me?”

“Why didn’t you stop when your father died in that car accident?”

He laughed, he actually laughed at her. “It wasn’t an accident, you stupid bitch. I killed him. He wanted me to stop this, said I’d already done enough, that this was just too much. He’d turned soft, he’d become a coward. I killed him because he’d become a weakling. He wasn’t worthy any longer. He betrayed my beloved mother’s memory. Yes, I clouted him on the side of the head and drove him in his car over a cliff.”

There wasn’t a sound from anyone standing below. Then, the sound of sirens in the distance. The flames were licking up over the edge of the roof now. She had to get out of there. Adam stood there, impotent. Becca, please, please. Get the hell out of there.

Becca said, her voice still strong, still clear and loud, “It ends here, Mikhail. Since I knew you’d try to escape back through that roof trapdoor, you had to know I wouldn’t let you get away. It ends here.”

“Yes,” he said. “It ends here. I killed the bastard who murdered my mother-your beloved father. I’ve done what I promised to do. And I took pleasure along the way, cleaning out the vermin that had invaded my life.”

He was standing very still, this handsome young man she’d spoken to in the gym in Riptide. He was slowly straightening now, standing tall.

“My father isn’t dead, Mikhail. He’ll survive. You failed.”

“The roof is going to collapse beneath us, Rebecca. It’s getting hotter. You’re barefoot. It’s got to be burning your feet now, isn’t it?”

Fire trucks pulled up to the curb, men jumping out, going into action. Becca heard a man yelling, “We’ve got a two-story residential fully involved structure fire! Jesus, what’s going on here?”

“Oh shit, there are people standing on the roof! That woman has a gun!”

“We can’t ladder the building, it’s too late. Get the life net!”

Becca heard them, felt her feet now, the heat burning them, wondered if the roof would collapse under her. “We’re going down, Mikhail,” she said. “Look, they’re bringing one of those safety nets. We’ll jump.”

“No,” he said. “No.” Then he pulled the lighter out of his jacket again and lit his sleeve. He rubbed it on his shirt, his pants, even while she watched, so horrified she froze. Then he smiled at her, nearly ablaze now, and ran at her, yelling, “Come away with your boyfriend. Come, let’s fly together, Rebecca!”

She pulled the trigger, once, and still he came, a ball of flame now, ru

He fell forward, nearly into her, but she jerked away just in time and he rolled over and over, a flaming ball of fire, off the roof to the ground below.

She heard people yelling. A jet of flame caught the sleeve of her nightgown. She ran quickly to the side of the roof, stood there for just an instant, slapping down the flames on her arm even as the fire inched closer and closer, and at last the firemen had the safety net in place.

Adam yelled, “Jump, Becca!”

And she did, without hesitation, her nightgown billowing out around her, her long legs bare, the white sleeve of her nightgown smoking. She hit the white safety net, her nightgown tangling around her. It closed over her for just an instant, and then a fireman yelled, “We’ve got her. She’s okay!”

He watched her scramble out of the confines of the safety net, shake off the firemen. She ran toward him, and he saw the shock in her face, the blindness in her eyes, but he couldn’t think of anything to say to her. Then there was simply nothing. He collapsed where he stood. The last thing he heard before the blackness closed over him was the huge roar of the collapsing roof and Becca’s voice, saying his name over and over.